jazzahead!

Grammy Award winner Gast Waltzing was born in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He began his musical adventure at the age of seven, studying at the conservatories of Luxembourg, Brussels and finally Paris. “I am always a musician,” he says. “It’s not like I wake up and decide where to schedule music in, it is always present.”
He has recorded numerous CDs with his various jazz groups (Atmosphere, Life’s Circle, Largo), composed and produced music for over 200 TV and feature films, was nominated for Best European Film Music Composer in 1989, and wrote symphonic arrangements for many artists, from the Scorpions to Amy McDonald to Gregory Porter (and many others). In 2016, he won a Grammy for his work with the great Angelique Kidjo on her CD Sings, blending her traditional African music and melodies with his symphonic orchestra arrangements.
Waltzing is Professor of Trumpet and Head of the Jazz Department at the Conservatory of Luxembourg, having created the department in 1986. He regularly works with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, where he was named Assistant Pops Director in 2016. In recent years, he has worked with many symphonic orchestras around the world—such as the Scottish Royal National Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Prague National Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, and the Orchestre Lamoureux—as a conductor, arranger, and also with his original compositions. Gast’s great love is to create innovative musical projects, mixing music genres and artists to create interesting musical combinations.

“A guitar player whose refreshing and pure guitar sound gives birth to multiple melodic climates, underlined by a most fluid style, a musician with a promising future.” Such is Lionel Loueke’s praise of the American-Luxembourgish guitarist and composer Greg Lamy, one of the most talented artists on the European jazz scene. After studying jazz guitar in Boston at the Berklee College of Music as well as in London at the Trinity College, Lamy was quickly noticed when showcasing with various bands in clubs and at festivals across Europe and the United States. He plays and has played with, among others, Lionel Loueke, Gretchen Parlato, Flavio Boltro, Bojan Z and Marco Massa. For Lamy, one tour follows hot on the heels of another. Europe, United States, Brazil, China—his music goes around the world. He released numerous albums with different projects, most notably with his quartet, Meeting in 2013 and Press Enter in 2017, as well as more recently Observe the Silence with
his trio and Bojan Z as guest musician. These albums were all highly praised and rank among the label Igloo Record’s bestselling albums. In 2020, he was offered an endorsement deal by renowned guitar manufacturer Westville.

At once vibraphonist, pianist and drummer, Jérôme Klein has become a sideman in demand in several disciplines. He holds a strong position in the Luxembourg and Belgian jazz scenes where he regularly plays with musicians such as Antoine Pierre, Veronika Harsca, Igor Gehenot, Chrystel Wautier, Maxime Bender, Ben Wendel and David Binney. With his first project as a leader, KLΞIИ works on contrasts, plunging into a sometimes nebulous atmosphere, with a melancholic and dark tone. In this almost pure setting, his music surprises with loud splinters of light, explosion of energy and even frenetic ecstasy when the musicians let their passion take over. After releasing their first EP at the start of 2019 and touring for almost two years, playing shows in France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, India, South Korea, Laos, Ukraine, Slovenia, Estonia and elsewhere, 2021
marked a first break for KLΞIИ into a creative process where they released their new album SONDER.

Maxime Bender’s compositions are influenced by all kinds of musical genres throughout his life, from rock and pop to classical and jazz. Bender constantly seeks to evolve, be it as an instrumentalist or as a composer.
As leader of different bands, he takes advantage of the particular natures of these projects to showcase his versatile facets as a composer and leader. He has released a number of albums, the most recent being Maxime Bender Universal Sky under the Italian label Cam Jazz.
Today, Maxime Bender is well known on the European jazz scene, having performed at several renowned festivals as well as in many clubs and other venues across Europe. Besides his own projects, Maxime Bender regularly performs with German piano jazz icon Joachim Kühn.

Diversity runs through the Michel Meis 4tet’s music like the proverbial thread. Through its diverse moods and complex, yet never arbitrary, structures. The band offers compositions that are as elaborate as they are playful, as danceable as they are melancholic. This eclectic character is
crystallised in their 2021 album Kaboom. In addition to his usual acolytes—Alisa Klein on trombone, Cédric Hanriot on piano and Stephan Goldbach on double bass—drummer Meis has surrounded himself with violinist Théo Ceccaldi for a long-winded, sinuous, and progressive album
that features a dazzling and unpredictable crossing of genres and mood, giving jazz a fresh touch by introducing elements from (post-)rock, electro-pop or classical music.

Hailed as a “tremendous pianist” by Downbeat Magazine, Michel Reis has, in recent years, paved his way towards becoming an artist of international acclaim.
Michel Reis has appeared at many of the world’s most famous venues and festivals. He has toured extensively all over the world, performing in Europe, Asia, North & South America and Africa. Michel Reis has released 12 albums as a leader and co-leader: A Young Mind (2005), Fairytale (2009), Point of No Return (2011), Reis Demuth Wiltgen (2013), Hidden Meaning (2013), Capturing This Moment (2015), Places In Between (2016), Mito (2018), Japan Quartet (2018), Once In A Blue Moon (2018), Short Stories (2019) and Sly (2021). Michel Reis is a Steinway Artist.

Pascal Schumacher is a multi-award-winning musician and composer. His main instrument is the vibraphone. He has played with many exciting musicians, such as Francesco Tristano, Bachar Mar-Khalifé, Sylvain Rifflet, Jef Neve, Kenny Barron, Magic Malik, Sebastian Studnitzky and Nils Frahm. He writes music for theatre, dance and film. Today, he mixes emotional classical music with minimal electronic sounds, although Schumacher himself considers each classification obsolete. To him, music is a single, limitless playground.
Pascal released 12 albums under his name and is signed exclusively to Berlin label Neue Meister. He is a Yamaha Artist and Professor of Jazz at the Conservatoire de Musique de Luxembourg.

Pit Dahm is a drummer, multi-instrumentalist and composer from Luxembourg where he was born and raised.
After finishing classical as well as jazz studies in Luxembourg he moved to Amsterdam in 2010 to pursue further studies on the drums with Martijn Vink, Marcel Serierse, Lucas van Mervijk amongst others.
In 2012, he won the Prinses Christina Concours with the Floris Kappeyne Trio.
Pit also won the Dutch Jazz Competition with the Loran Witteveen Quintet as well as “The Records” by the Keep an Eye foundation with “Urban Voyage”. In 2014 he graduated from the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In 2016 Pit finished his Masters Degree with honours at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and won the Toots Thielemans Jazz Award.
Pit toured in Europe, Asia and South-America with different projects. He is currently living and teaching in Luxembourg and working on his second solo album called Freedom of the Unknown for the slovak label Hevhetia.

From the moment Pol played his first note on an instrument, sometime in the 1990’s in a small Southern Luxembourgish town called Tétange, his curiosity about creating music was awakened. After studying a wide range of styles close to home (classical percussion, piano, drums and theory) combined with a fair amount of experience with classical orchestra as well as a rock band experience, he set sail and went off to study in
Brussels and Amsterdam, earning a Master’s degree cum laude in bass guitar in 2014. Throughout his entire career, he has forged himself a strong credo consisting of two main ingredients: polyvalence and creativity.
Critically acclaimed on various occasions, his projects vary in both style concepts and the instrument(s) he plays. Since the first attempts at trying his hand at composition as a child, he has grown into a prolific composer who is not afraid to draw on the wide range of genres he has played over the years.
Now based in Luxembourg, Pol’s main drive in life is to share his artistic vision as a band leader, sideman, producer, composer (also including film and theatre), arranger, radio presenter, teacher and actor.

Michel Reis, Marc Demuth and Paul Wiltgen, three of Luxembourg’s most prominent jazz musicians formed Reis Demuth Wiltgen in 1998. The trio combines melodic composition with driving groove and rhythmic complexity. Their style caught the attention of American saxophonist Joshua Redman, who has collaborated with the trio on multiple occasions since 2014. Redman said, “…I was really taken with their sound as a trio… They have this way of being sophisticated, from a technical standpoint, and also really melodic. I kind of fell in love with their song writing.” The band has toured extensively throughout the world and appeared at major international jazz festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Western Africa. The trio is signed with CAM JAZZ. Reis Demuth Wiltgen released their fourth album SLY in February 2021.

Tele-Port is a brand-new project consisting of leading jazz voices from Luxembourg (namely bassist Pol Belardi, keyboardist Jérôme Klein and drummer Jeff Herr) joining forces with the adventurous Russian saxophonist Zhenya Strigalev, who also has been a firm part of the London jazz scene for the last decade. Their original music concept can be defined as a distillate of carefully chosen ingredients coming as much from the heart of Europe (with its romance, wisdom and patience), the United States (with their jazz history), and Eastern influences (with their own rich traditions). The result is an excitingly modern take on jazz. One might think of a sonic creature with a European head, American feet and
a ticket to board the plane that starts the search to find its constantly shapeshifting body. The compositions inevitably unfold in various directions, teleporting the listener to a multitude of different places, due to the mere fact that each band member is also a skilled composer
embracing and adding their own personal background.
From careful minimalism via groove-driven chants to completely improvised energetic supernovas, Tele-Port keeps the promise that is already in their name, guaranteed to take you to many different places. While any name-dropping for the sake of finding influences proves unnecessary, rest assured that this music will excite you as much as the performers and provide an unmatched and colourful live experience.